Early to Bed
by Masquerading as Quality
Summary: Briar Rose has never known anything but love and kindness. Now, with all the evil of the world placed upon her shoulders at once, she finds herself terrified, ill-equipped, and completely fascinated. Undergoing major rewrites!
1. Prologue

**A/N:** Thank you so much to all of the people who have read, favourited, alerted, and reviewed this story! I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it. I present to you now the second draft. I am much happier with it so far, and I hope you will offer your feedback if that kind of thing interests you. If not, and you still choose to read or even reread, again, I cannot thank you enough for your time and interest! If you'd like access to the first draft of this story, please feel free to let me know, as I have it stored on a blog with a password for just such a happenstance!

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**Prologue**

Sixteen years ago, a baby girl was born on the first day of spring. She brought with her boundless hope, which she bestowed not only upon the hearts of her parents, who had believed themselves for many years to be unable to bear children, but upon the hearts of an entire kingdom of people who so feared a return to the corruption of the not-so-distant past.

This baby girl was a princess, and though she could not by law be heiress to her father's throne, she would make an excellent bride to the eldest prince in a nearby kingdom with which her kingdom was hoping to merge.

For better or for worse, things have a habit of changing over the course of sixteen years. A baby girl grows into a beautiful maiden, a lonely young woman grows into a cruel and conniving menace, and a kingdom full of hope falls into fearful despair.

Today, when the sun set on the first day of spring, the princess was to be married. It was to be a celebration of a sixteen-year-long curse which the kingdom believed had come to an end, and everyone in the Land of the Three Kingdoms was invited. The guest of honour had, however, only been made aware of this most pressing engagement a few hours earlier. She had been understandably quite upset at this last-minute notice of her impending destiny and had desperately wanted not to attend.

Now, as she found that she could not move, nor even open her eyes, she noted with some irony that the aforementioned threat to her freedom was perhaps not so pressing as she had previously imagined.

The princess, whose given name was Aurora, but who much preferred to be called Briar Rose, as it was the only name she had ever known until today, did not know where she was nor how she had come to be here. She did not even know how long she had been here.

She wanted to run. Pace. Beat against the bars of her prison. But her prison was her own body and the only bars were the backs of her eyelids. It was as though she were asleep.

Holding onto thoughts proved difficult. As a person who had spent a great deal of her life alone, Briar Rose relied very much on her thoughts to keep her from losing track of what was real and what was her own private fantasy. Now, trapped between sleep and wakefulness, she found that her thoughts were fleeting, like bits of dreams, and that she had a great deal of trouble piecing them together. She knew that much longer of this aimless feeling would drive her mad.

She tried to remember the last thing she had seen, and this did not help. She was almost certain that her being wherever she was had to do with a spinning wheel. She could recall following a most entrancing green light up countless flights of spiraling stairs only to end up before the spinning wheel, and she could recall feeling strangely as though her entire life had somehow led her to that moment. The spinning wheel seemed at the time to make perfect sense—why had it taken so long?

But of course that was madness. Briar Rose wanted to shake the sense back into her head, but alas, she could not bring her head to move.

"Good evening, Princess Aurora," said a voice. It was low, rich in timbre and powerful, and it resonated in Briar Rose's very soul.

A most unpleasant sensation overtook Rose's body: she had had the impulse to jump in surprise at the sound of the voice, but her body did not respond to it. She was left only with the tension—the spring without the release—and it made her skin crawl.

_Touch the spindle_, echoed the very same voice. This one was not real—Rose could tell the difference between the real voice and the dream. Or was it a memory? Of this she wasn't certain. She felt simultaneously that she had never heard this voice before and that it had haunted her dreams for as long as she could remember.

Rose made the mistake of trying to cry out, to ease some of the tension, but this only added to her feeling of unease—the cry died on her lips, as though from lack of air.

"There's no need to be frightened, child," said the Voice. "You and your loved ones are all quite safe for the moment."

For the moment? Rose had not even had the time to consider that she might be in imminent danger, let alone that anyone else might be. To whom did this terrifying voice belong? Where were her aunts? Why had the voice led her away from them? Where was the boy from the woods? Where was she, for that matter?

"Patience, Princess Aurora," the Voice responded. The foreign name prompted Rose's stomach to attempt and fail to twist. Could the Voice truly hear her every thought?

The Voice chuckled and Rose was introduced to a new world of discomfort: chills down her spine without the ability to shiver. "Of course I can, child. It is my spell, after all, muddled though it has become. Would you rather I call you Briar Rose, perhaps? A rather excessively poetic name for you to borrow, but then, I would expect nothing less of the fairies you call your aunts."

Rose wanted to cry and instead felt like she was choking.

"There, there," said the Voice gently. "I did not mean to upset you any further. It is much to bear, I know."

Rose found it most disturbing to consider that if she did not know in her waking hours that a voice which encouraged her to hurt herself was most certainly not a friendly one, that voice would seem dear to her—as dear as the nameless, faceless, voiceless prince who kept her company in her more pleasant dreams. After all, when one had only ever known three names, three faces, and three voices, all of which belonged to one's dear, but overbearing aunts, it was understandable that one should become rather fascinated by anyone else one encountered, even if it was only in dreams.

The Voice chuckled and Rose was frightened out of her reverie. "Hurt yourself? I'd hardly call a little prick of the finger hurting yourself. You'd make a rather miserable seamstress. How is it you planned to make a living as a peasant?"

Rose felt vaguely offended, and though she wanted to think of a quick reply, she had never given the subject much thought. Her aunts had never made her learn to sew. She had only learned to cook and do the housework because her aunts were rather hopeless at it. She had always secretly wondered if she might make a living off of her singing. Rose grew embarrassed once more when she realized that this was no longer a secret to the Voice.

"Some profession for a respectable young lady," the Voice replied. "How would you ever find a husband?"

Rose's embarrassment grew tenfold. _Well_, she thought miserably, _that doesn't matter very much now, does it?_

"You're quite right," the Voice responded. "It doesn't matter."

_What do you want with me? _Rose wondered. _Where are my aunts? Why am I here like this? Where is here?_

"Does it matter?"

_Perhaps not. Perhaps I'm only asking out of curiosity. Are you going to kill me? I think that you are. It doesn't matter. There's nothing I can do about it. I'm only curious_. Rose was really beginning to feel mad. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. What a tremendous relief.

"I'm not going to kill you," the Voice replied to Rose's surprise. "You're lying in the tower room of King Stefan's castle where your aunts left you unattended. I suspect they're on their way to warn Prince Philip that I'm after him, but of course they're far too late for that. You're here because I wanted my curse carried out, regardless of how Merryweather tampered with it."

Merryweather, Rose's youngest aunt, was headstrong and argumentative, and she rarely thought before she spoke or acted. It came as no surprise to Rose that Merryweather might have unintentionally brought down the wrath of some unnamed evil force upon herself. Rose wondered idly what Merryweather had done to anger the Voice, and on an unrelated note, whether the Voice even had a name or corporeal form at all.

The Voice chuckled. "My name is Maleficent."

Maleficent! Maleficent was the name of the wicked fairy who had placed a curse on the Princess Aurora—or rather, on Rose, herself, because she and the Princess Aurora were one and the same. Rose's head began to ache. _Why do you want to kill me? I'm not the person you want me to be. I'm not the person anyone wants me to be_.

"Oh, but you are. Do you think it matters to the king and queen that you don't _feel_ like you're their daughter? Do you think it matters to the kingdom that you don't feel like a princess? Do you think it matters to that boy you met in the woods that you're not the person he wants you to be? In case it has escaped your notice, _princess_, your thoughts and feelings are inconsequential. What matters is that you show up at the right time looking pretty and that you hold your tongue on any conflicting feelings you might be having about becoming a different person."

Rose's body was trying to cry again, and again she felt like she was choking. She tried to calm herself, but she only grew more frenzied as she began to feel starved for air.

The women she thought were her family were not even human. The name she answered to every moment of every day was not truly her name, but merely _borrowed_. The life she had always known was merely some sick game these women were playing at, and she could not even keep playing it. She must become a princess—she must become _the _Princess, the fabled Princess Aurora who had been hidden away for her own safety.

The future Maleficent described sounded absolutely _lovely_ compared to this hell she was trapped in at the moment. She could not be herself, she could not be Princess Aurora—who was she, then? She was nobody. She might never move again. She might be trapped with her inconsequential thoughts forever, swirling round and round until they hardly made sense anymore, or until she finally choked herself to death trying to cry.

Cold fingers lightly touched Rose's temple and her thoughts were stunned into silence. The fingers ran through her hair slowly, a comforting gesture which made her entire body ache with the inability to react to it. And then the fingers were gone and she longed for their return.

"What matters to me," Maleficent continued, "is that you are _not_ where you're supposed to be, playing the part you're supposed to play. Unfortunately, your fairy aunts, in keeping with their recent spree of bizarre and rather cruel ideas, have seen fit to put the entire kingdom to sleep along with you so that they do not notice your absence, though I might add that they are enjoying a much more restful sleep than you have been afforded. That spell is linked with the spell acting on you, leaving it even more muddled than it was before. As such, my plans have been delayed."

_Muddled? What do you mean by muddled?_

Maleficent sighed heavily. "Do you know anything about my curse, or have those bumbling old fools left you completely in the dark? Honestly," she scoffed. "I'm beginning to pity you."

Rose did know about the curse as it pertained to Princess Aurora, but the information had not seemed especially relevant to her until a few hours ago…or at least that was how it felt. She had no way of knowing how long she had been here, and Maleficent only seemed to be answering questions when it struck her fancy. Rose supposed she understood—villains in stories were usually only interested in giving something if they got something out of it, and it wasn't as though she had any information worth knowing.

Rose knew that Maleficent had appeared at her christening and cursed her to fall into a deep sleep on her sixteenth birthday. The part she found difficult to piece together was when the three good fairies—who were one and the same with her aunts—had kept her, the princess, hidden for sixteen years, because Maleficent's curse could only be acted out if Maleficent found her. Or something like that. It was all very confusing when she tried to remind herself that she was the princess.

Rose's thoughts were once more interrupted by Maleficent's cold laughter. "I cursed you to prick your finger on a spinning wheel and die! Was the spinning wheel bit too risqué for their little tale?"

So Maleficent did mean to kill her. Rose didn't know why this information should surprise her, but she still felt oddly betrayed. _But then what did Aunt Merryweather do_?

"Calm yourself, child. I already said I don't plan to kill you. I shan't keep repeating myself to soothe your nerves. Merryweather, the Mistress of Misplaced Aggression, used what little power she possesses to weaken my curse so that, if you pricked your finger as I stipulated, you would fall into a deep slumber. Though I must say, her idea of a deep slumber and mine differ significantly," she chuckled to herself.

"Unsurprisingly, her magic and mine do not mix well, and so why she didn't give a less volatile stipulation than True Love's First Kiss is beyond my comprehension. I do hope for your sake that you haven't been kissed by someone already?"

_Of course not_, Rose replied, feeling embarrassed again. _I've scarcely even met anyone_.

"Well, Prince Philip seems quite taken with you, and his family isn't well-known for ironclad self-control, so I thought I should ask. It would be distastefully bad form of me to leave you without any hope at all, now, wouldn't it?"

Prince Philip? Of the North? It occurred to Rose that Maleficent had mentioned his name once already. Rose had never laid eyes upon Prince Philip, and had only learned that she-or rather, Aurora-was betrothed to him today. What did he have to do with anything?

The smile in Maleficent's voice chilled Briar Rose to the bones. "Oh, did I neglect to mention that? You two make quite a charming fairytale, you know!" Her voice turned syrupy sweet, almost too sincere. "A peasant girl falls in love with a mysterious man. A prince falls in love with a peasant maid. It can never be, but wait! That peasant's blood runs blue, and the royal Daughter of the Dawn has been betrothed to her handsome stranger since birth!" Maleficent barely choked out the last word before dissolving into laughter.

The boy in the woods…the nameless man she had lost before she even had him at all…was Prince Philip of the North, the same man to whom Princess Aurora had been betrothed since birth?

"Yes, isn't it sweet?" Maleficent hissed and Rose's body was overtaken by unrealized shivering. "I'm certain you two will be very happy together if I ever decide to release him from his accommodations in my dungeon."

Innumerable questions swirled in Briar Rose's head. She wanted to beg for the boy's—for Philip's release, to sell her soul, to give her own life for his, to pledge to do anything Maleficent could possibly want of her for the rest of her days. She wanted to scream and cry about how unfair her life had become, to beg nobody in particular to go back to the way it had been only a day ago. But the only thing she really needed, the only thing that would make any other request or offer or bargain on her part even fathomable, was the ability to react. Everything Briar Rose had ever known had turned suddenly upside-down and had ever since kept spinning and breaking into irreparable pieces, and she could not even properly grieve all that she had lost.

When Maleficent spoke again, much of the coldness was gone from her voice, as was the sickening sweetness. She spoke softly and evenly. "I'm afraid that would require adding more magic to this spell, Briar Rose, and it's volatile enough as it is."

_Why should you care_?

"I care," Maleficent replied, and that coldness, that hardness in her tone was back—she sounded almost tired, "because I am going to win, and then this is going to end. No more games, no more variables."

So what? So Rose was going to be stuck like this…

"Until you receive True Love's First Kiss, my dear," Maleficent said sweetly. "Unfortunately, your current flame is all tied up at the moment, and every other eligible bachelor in the realm seems to be napping on the job. So," Maleficent's voice began to fade away, "unless you fall in love with me," she chuckled cruelly, "it seems you're out of options."

Rose sensed Maleficent's absence long before the haunting echoes of her laughter had died out. She wondered whether it was because the room had grown warmer or colder, and spent the next several hours thoroughly stunned that she could not tell which it was.


	2. The Good Fairies

**A/N: **Some of the dialogue in this chapter is borrowed from the movie. As always, your readership and feedback are much appreciated!

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**Chapter 1 – The Good Fairies**

_"Why, Merryweather!" Flora exclaimed. Her youngest sister, whose emotional states usually included only happy and furious, was crying._

_"Whatever is the matter, dear?" asked Fauna, pushing a lock of grey hair out of her eyes._

_"After today," sniffed Merryweather, "she'll be a princess, and we won't have any Briar Rose!"_

_Fauna had gasped, clutching a pile of dough to her chest maternally. No more Briar Rose. That thought hadn't occurred to her. "Oh, Flora!"_

_"Now, now, now," Flora scolded, but it was clear the thought had not occurred to her, either. "We all knew this day had to come!"_

_Fauna felt tears begin to well up in her eyes, "But why did it have to come so soon?"_

_"After all," Flora continued, "We've had her for sixteen years."_

_"Sixteen wonderful years," Merryweather gushed, and the three sisters stood together in a rare moment of unity._

_As usual, the eldest of the fairy sisters regained her composure first. "Oh, gracious!" she blustered, and the moment was broken. "We're acting like a lot of ninnies!"_

Flora later argued that this moment of emotional weakness had been the beginning of the end.

"I'll never forgive myself," she had uttered as the sun set, much to the shock of her younger sisters. In just over five hundred years, Flora had never lost an argument—at least in her own mind—and therefore had never seen any need to take responsibility for her nonexistent wrongs.

Fauna, touched by her sister's sudden epiphany, replied kindly, "We're all to blame," because that was the way it felt. In reality, they probably couldn't have avoided this moment if they had an infinite number of chances. Maleficent's magic was complex and far-reaching. Their fault lay in believing the danger had passed. Maleficent was ever dangerous, and though Flora maintained that she was as old as all time, she always struck Fauna as seeming young. Lurking beneath her icy calm exterior was a current of boundless, almost frantic energy. Fauna got the sense that long after she and her sisters had died, the danger Maleficent posed would still not have passed.

With the help of their wands, Fauna and her sisters fashioned a bed of sorts in the tower room and settled Rose upon it. Outside, the party for Aurora's return had begun with fireworks and Flora, overcome, went out onto the balcony to watch.

Fauna and Merryweather exchanged a glance, for they had never seen Flora like this. They followed her outside.

"I don't know what's worse," Merryweather muttered. "Seeing Rose like that or seeing all those people out there waiting for her."

Fauna was absolutely certain which was worse.

"They're going to be very disappointed," Flora replied miserably. "We're going to be sent away. Stefan is going to think we—"

"Nonsense—how could he?"

"How could he not, Merryweather? We failed," she sighed. "We're going to be burned at the stake like witches."

"Flora, we're not going to be burned at the stake. That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. If you'd just think for one minute, you'd realize…"

Merryweather was right—it was ridiculous. Fauna had never heard of a Good Fairy being burned at the stake, and she and her sisters didn't have enough magic between them to put a curse on a fly.

Really, it was an odd thing to be worrying about. Rose was under Maleficent's curse, three kingdoms worth of people were waiting for her outside, and the King and Queen—_oh_.

"Oh, the King and Queen—oh, the poor dears," Fauna breathed through a fresh wave of tears. Stefan and Leah, who had wanted a child for so many years and who had finally created a miracle, had been forced to let her go the very next day. They had waited nearly half of their lives for this day. Fauna, who could expect to live at least ten times longer than even the healthiest human, could not even imagine waiting half her life for anything.

Fauna suddenly realized that her sisters had stopped bickering. After a moment of only the sound of fireworks and cheerful party-goers, Merryweather sniffled. "They'll be heartbroken when they find out."

Flora had suddenly gotten a grip on her emotions and was staring wide- and dry-eyed at the place where the sun had just set. "They're not going to," she said at last.

"They…?"

"They're not going to find out," Flora repeated, sounding vaguely irritated. "I'm going to fix this. We are going to fix this. We'll put them all to sleep until Rose awakens."

"But—"

"Flora—you're going to put all three kingdoms to sleep? Until the curse is broken?"

"Didn't you hear me?" Flora snapped.

"Flora," Fauna cried, scurrying after her, "we don't even know if that boy is her true love!"

"And even if he is, that's going to create a whole new mess of problems when Rose wakes up and still has to marry Philip!" Merryweather agreed.

Magical true love was a tricky matter. It made for powerful magic—certainly the most powerful of which the three sisters were capable, hence Merryweather's use of the stuff to counteract Maleficent's curse—but it was volatile and highly subjective. Unsurprisingly, it was next to impossible for one person to determine another person's true love.

"And if he isn't, who knows who her true love could be?"

"_Where_ he could be! Without Rose awake, it'll take us ages to find him!"

"Do you have a better idea, Merryweather?" Flora snarled. "True Love's Kiss was your brilliant idea, after all."

"You know very well that was all I could do—"

"That was all you could think of! If I'd had a gift left to give, I could have—"

"You could have what, exactly? Tell me what your idea would have been, and then remember that I had about half a second to decide!"

"Oh, poor you, left with the daunting task of thinking of anyone other than yourself!"

"You're one to talk! If it had been left up to you, you would have turned her into a flower! And do you know what would have happened then? I'll tell you…"

Fauna squeezed her eyes closed and tried to tune them out as they made their way down to the screaming crowd. Fortunately it was so loud that the fairies were able to cast their sleeping spell and bicker at the same time without attracting undue attention.

Fauna wondered privately whether adding more magic to Maleficent's spell was a good idea. The combination of Maleficent's magic and Merryweather's already seemed like a match made in the depths of Hell, itself; adding Flora's and Fauna's couldn't be much better.

But Flora was in charge of the spell. Flora had come up with a solid enough plan where Fauna and Merryweather had none. In truth, even if they'd offered a plan, Flora would have dismissed it as nonsense, so there was little Fauna and Merryweather could really say on the matter.

Flora, for her part, believed that she had come up with a foolproof plan. This way, she and her idiot sisters had ample time to scour the world for Rose's magical true love and no one would know the difference . What was more, with the greater part of all three kingdoms sound asleep at the foot of Stefan's castle, they could search this realm with relative ease.

As she cast the spell upon Kings Hubert of the North and Stefan of the East, she overheard the end of their conversation.

"…been talking to, ah…Philip," said Hubert through a yawn.

Stefan was apparently very susceptible to Sleeping Charms, because he did not respond.

"Seems he's fallen in love…with some…" he yawned again "peasant girl…"

Peasant girl! Flora stopped in midair and whirled back around to face Hubert. Could it be?

"Yes, yes?" she prodded Hubert, who was blinking sleepily, then tried yelling in his ear. "The peasant girl—who is she? Where did he meet her?"

"…oh….hmmm…just some…peasant girl…" he mumbled.

"Where, where!"

"Oh, what was he…." yawn "…on about? Once upon…" yawn "a dream…"

Once upon a…_oh!_

Oh, this changed everything! The boy Rose had met in the woods, the one she was so upset about earlier, was Prince Philip! If he was just as taken with her as she was with him, then it was very possible that he was also her magical true love!

Additionally, if Philip was the boy, then Philip—and not an unnamed peasant—was going to the cottage in the woods right about now to meet Rose, who would not be there. And if Maleficent had found out about Rose, it was quite probable she also knew where to find Rose's would-be rescuer.

There were many things Flora despised about Maleficent—indeed, if there was a thing and it was related to Maleficent, Flora despised it—and one of these was that Maleficent was a masterful schemer. She absolutely always had at least one hidden agenda, and she predicted and planned for a multitude of possible outcomes to any decision she made. If Maleficent knew that Rose had a potential true love, she would find and capture him as soon as her main target had been secured.

"Come on!" she shouted to her sisters. "We've got to get back to the cottage!"

"Why?" asked Merryweather. "What's the matter?"

As they flew, Flora quickly explained what she had just figured out. "Prince Philip was the boy Rose met in the woods! Which means he's going to be waiting for her at the cottage tonight, and I'll bet my wings Maleficent won't be far behind!"

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Unfortunately for the three good fairies, Maleficent was not far behind at all. She was, as usual, quite the opposite. Maleficent was, in fact, so far ahead in her plans for the evening that she was feeling positively charitable.

First, she had given her minions (the ones she had not killed in a minor lightning storm shortly after her raven Diablo had done in an hour what had taken them sixteen years to miscarry) leave to do as they pleased for the rest of the evening, which was evidently to throw a slightly disturbing party wherein they danced cheerfully in a circle around the incinerating carcasses of their brethren.

Momentarily relieved of her responsibilities, she gave herself leave to sit atop her throne overlooking them for a spell whilst she stroked the feathered head of her dearest (and only) friend and indulged in frivolous contemplations on the various things she might do to toy with the royal families of Kings Stefan and Hubert.

She had two rather valuable playing pieces at her disposal at the moment, and the best part was that they had all but fallen neatly into her lap. She must remember to thank her fairy kin for that. The Good Fairies of the East were many things (though admittedly the only thing that came to mind at the moment was _uncommonly irritating_), but planners and schemers they were not. Indeed, Maleficent had never seen any evidence that they ever planned ahead for any reason at all, except for parties, of course, but Maleficent hardly considered social gatherings a worthwhile venture.

For example, Maleficent had planned to simply waltz into Princess Aurora's christening, enact a good, clean bit of revenge and forget about the whole matter, a rare act of generosity if she did say so. She'd given the Queen—and by extension the Eastern Kingdom—a gift, her stipulations were not met, and she reserved the right to take her gift away. The sixteen years were more than just a fun little twist; they were a safety net. It was cruel poetry, surely: the King and Queen could have the precious child they had wanted for so long, but she would not live into adulthood. On top of that, however, it gave Maleficent ample time to change her plans to kill the princess if, for example, a more useful or entertaining idea came to mind in the meantime.

Then those three bumbling idiots had decided to complicate the spell, so that it turned from an amusing hobby to a time-consuming obsession.

Maleficent supposed she had been slightly off in her timing. She'd intended to appear in time for the gift giving ceremony, but the way it had happened, Merryweather was able to use her gift to muddle Maleficent's curse. As if that weren't despicable enough, a few days later, Maleficent had learned that the infant princess had been hidden away somewhere by the three good fairies.

At first, she'd been amused. It was quite difficult to hide anything from Maleficent. Though her magic was, tragically, not at all amenable to tracking people, between her hundreds of minions, the countless ravens surrounding the Forbidden Castle who were more than happy to do her bidding, and a smattering of powerful acquaintances with access to almost every kingdom on Earth, if Maleficent wanted to find someone or something, she could find it with very little effort.

After a few years of aforesaid lack of effort, however, the princess and the three good fairies had not been located. Maleficent was not only immensely surprised by this, she was quite furious and proceeded to conduct the search herself in a kind of frenzy. She felt that this failure showed a weakness in her abilities which she had not noticed and she wanted to find and correct the flaw as soon as possible.

The only stones she left unturned, as it happened, were the houses of peasants in and around the Eastern Kingdom. She'd sent her minions to search them every so often, but she had sincerely believed that the good fairies weren't stupid enough—or at the very least, reckless enough—to hide the princess in plain sight. If Maleficent, herself, had taken a quick stroll through the woods and come upon them, she would have found not only the princess she sought, but her three greatest annoyances, powerless and completely at her mercy.

Maleficent gathered that they had made this foolhardy decision as some sort of statement to or about her, but she couldn't even begin to understand what it was. Any way she looked at it, hiding the princess a stone's throw away from her home with only three out of shape old women as her protection from one of the more powerful wicked fairies in the world was colossally idiotic, and she found she would almost be interested in hearing Flora's self-righteous explanation for her actions.

Well, anyway, Flora had perhaps won the battle, but not the war. Maleficent had found the girl in the end. Now, though, with sixteen years of relentless searching behind her, she must carefully consider her options.

After cursing the princess and capturing her would-be rescuer, Maleficent had returned to the tower. Her intention had been to battle the good fairies (which, while she imagined it wouldn't be very difficult, would be a bit tiresome) and move the princess to a more secure location. She had found to her surprise that the tower was abandoned but for the sleeping girl and that the entire welcome party for Princess Aurora, which consisted of the greater part of the entire realm, was asleep along with her. What was more, they were cursed to sleep for as long as she was. What in Hell's name were those fairies playing at?

Maleficent had lit upon the balcony of the tower room to find that she could hear a voice. It was strange, though: the voice did not change volume when she moved, it hardly ever formed clear sentences, and it seemed somehow not to exist in the corporeal world. It was, the more Maleficent thought about it, the mere shadow of a voice, as though it were a memory or a half-remembered dream. She had eventually determined that the mysterious voice was none other than that of the Princess Aurora, whose cursed slumber was evidently not quite as restful as Merryweather had intended.

The princess had an unclear, disorganized thought process which was prone to wander off-topic. She seemed to find it deeply troubling that she had no access to the visual or kinesthetic world. Indeed, her thoughts often seemed a bit like rambling nonsense and they were generally either frightened or dreadfully melancholy, emotions with which Maleficent was unaccustomed to contending.

The truly baffling thing was that, after chatting with the princess, Maleficent found herself strangely even less certain of how to proceed.

Her first instinct was simply to allow the Prince to kiss his Princess. There was no way that could end well. Aurora—or Briar Rose, as she preferred to be called—had grown up a sheltered peasant. She seemed like a pleasant enough person—likeable, even, which was a rather gushing compliment coming from Maleficent, who rarely felt anything more than begrudging tolerance towards anyone. Briar Rose had even inspired Maleficent to make the closest thing to idle chitchat she had ever attempted.

But beauty and an agreeable personality did not make the life of a Queen any easier. Briar Rose seemed in general to be a bit of a fragile creature; Maleficent gathered that she might be easily overwhelmed by the challenges of a life so foreign to her.

This seemed the best decision for Maleficent's purposes in that her involvement in the matter would be quickly ended. She could fight battles to protect her castle or, if she didn't want to bother, she could squirrel herself away for awhile until the chaos died down and the banalities of everyday life drove her enemies insane for her amusement.

However, upon consideration, Maleficent was not certain whether letting Philip kiss Briar Rose was an option. Maleficent would be the first to admit that she knew next to nothing about Magical True Love. She found the spells based upon it to be almost entirely nonsense, and the complications it had imposed upon her own brilliantly crafted spell did not endear it to her any further. Still, there was something very peculiar about the way Briar Rose had reacted to the news of Prince Philip. Her thoughts had been very jumbled and difficult to understand—not the kind of thing that indicated the magnetic draw of magical true love. She'd seemed rather taken aback (rather than romantically entranced) by the idea of her mysterious stranger as the same man Princess Aurora was to marry. Most importantly, though a part of her had wanted to make some sort of plea to sacrifice herself for him, the thought that had won out in the end had been a self-centered one. That was to say, she chose herself over Philip. Maleficent had always heard that people bound by magical true love—even when they barely knew each other—were almost incapable of doing that.

Then again, perhaps Maleficent was overanalyzing. That sentiment had always stricken her as utterly absurd. She had no idea why she would suddenly put stock in such nonsense now. Besides, True Love magic was extremely subjective. Maleficent would be perfectly contented to die without having any idea of what Mistress Merryweather considered an ideal love match, but Philip—a prince with a strong build, a symmetrical face, and a superficial charm—seemed as likely a candidate as any.

Maleficent decided that, in order to err on the side of caution, she ought to proceed as though Philip were indeed Briar Rose's true love. If the information became somehow important to her, she could always invest the time it would require to determine whether this was true. What she ought to focus on now was what she wanted out of this situation, in the short term and in the long term.

In the short term, she wanted to gloat—that much was clear. She wanted the Three Kingdoms to mourn the loss of their beloved princess. She wanted them to beg her for mercy. She wanted to act as though she might show mercy and then rip it away from them. She wanted them all to know that this was the fault of Queen Leah, that she had not held up her end of a bargain they would condemn, anyway. Ideally, she could turn Hubert and Stefan so avidly against one another over the matter that they would start a war.

Unfortunately, this plan, delightful though it sounded, required that the kingdom be awake and the princess remain asleep. Curse those incompetent little fairies and their insatiable need to meddle! The way the spells were intertwined, Maleficent would not be able to wake up the kingdom without waking the princess. Two powerful sleeping curses in a row were a rather messy, complicated, time-consuming way to kill someone as fragile as Briar Rose, and Maleficent didn't particularly want to do that.

Then again, why not? The timing would be tricky, but if Maleficent worked it out correctly, she could have her fun, and by the time Maleficent acquiesced to the kingdom's pleas for mercy upon the princess, she would already have died from the curse overdose.

Even as Maleficent thought it through, she shook her head against it. It was too messy, too unrefined. There must be a better way of getting what she wanted, one which did not involve killing an innocent girl.

And yet, hadn't she been planning just that sixteen years ago? What had been her motivation for cursing the infant princess to die if in the privacy of her own mind she knew that when the time came, she would avoid getting the blood of an innocent on her hands if at all possible? Had she always known this? Or was it a recent development? Honestly, she rather hoped it was merely the result of her reaction to surprisingly pleasant company and not a newfound softness for the world at large.

Maleficent needed a plan which would buy her more time, not only to come up with a better plan, but to sort out her own sudden and befuddling distaste for murder.

Evidently, this was a simple enough stipulation for her sleep-deprived mind to meet, for Maleficent suddenly felt a smile crossing her lips. "What a pity," she told Diablo, "that Prince Philip can't be here to enjoy the celebration. Come!" she stood from her throne. "We must go to the dungeon and cheer him up."

Diablo, sensing the favourable shift in his mistress's mood, flew eagerly about her shoulders as they made their way into her dungeons, and Maleficent thought fondly upon her long-time companion. He was her dearest and only friend because he was the only creature to whom she had ever felt particularly similar. He shared her short attention span and her taste for irony. He was ever-vigilant and had a sharp mind, assessing a situation and how to react quickly. Diablo delighted in carrying out Maleficent's will, as it often matched his own.

Maleficent unlocked the door to the dungeon in which Philip resided, then the door to his individual prison cell. While she was quite positive he would not escape even if she allowed him to roam freely about her castle, Maleficent was not one to flaunt her prowess in the face of unlikely happenstance.

Prince Philip sat chained to the walls of his dungeon cell, eyes downcast, expression morose. His misery only fed Maleficent's mirth.

"Oh, come now, Prince Philip," she scolded him, her voice syrupy-sweet. "Why so melancholy? A wondrous future lies before you! You! The destined hero of a charming fairytale-come-true!"

He looked up at her, his expression conflicted as he tried to determine whether she was only mocking him or whether she was truly about to tell him something that would cheer him. Her smile widened. Foolish youths, unaccustomed as they were to the cruelty of this world, fell so easily for the tricks of her voice.

"Behold," she said softly and twirled her fingers about her staff, willing it to show Philip her brilliant idea.

As far as Maleficent was concerned, the good fairies had hidden the Princess Aurora in plain sight with the intention of mocking her. Foolhardy though this move had been, it had nearly succeeded. As retribution for their half-witted attempts to play to what they considered Maleficent's weaknesses, Maleficent would play to theirs. She would write them a fairytale.

"King Stefan's castle, and in yonder topmost tower, dreaming of her true love, the Princess Aurora," the name was like silk on her lips. "But see the gracious whim of fate! Why, 'tis the selfsame peasant maid who won the heart of our noble prince but yesterday!" Maleficent's smile softened as she looked upon the sleeping form of the princess and the warmth in her voice was genuine as she continued.

"She is, indeed, most wondrous fair.  
Gold of sunshine in her hair,  
Lips that shame the red, red rose.  
In ageless sleep, she finds repose."

The prince was smiling, too, enchanted, completely won over. This was too easy. Now for the twist.

"The years roll by, but a hundred years to a steadfast heart are but a day!"

The prince's smile faltered and his eyebrows furrowed.

"And now, the gates of the dungeon part,  
And our prince is free to go his way!  
Off he rides on his noble steed  
A valiant figure, straight and tall…"

Maleficent's sweet voice became sickly and sing-song, and Philip's face contorted in anger and disbelief.

"To wake his love with love's first kiss  
And prove that true love conquers all!"

Philip strained against his shackles and Maleficent was consumed by uncontrollable laughter. She felt light-headed, almost dizzy, and it occurred to her that she had not slept in…weeks? Months? Really, she hadn't had a proper sleep in sixteen years. Perhaps her mind would be more agile after a full night of much-deserved rest.

"Come, my pet," she said once she had calmed herself. Diablo was swooping in mocking circles around the prince's head. Prince Philip was still glaring at her ineffectually. "Let us leave our noble prince with these happy thoughts."

She exited Philip's cell slowly and made a great show of closing the door behind her before she locked and enchanted it. Tonight, she thought contentedly as she ascended the stairs, for the first time in sixteen years, she would sleep well.

However, before she could even clear the first flight, she sensed something amiss. Shortly after turning on her heel and making her way back down the stairs to check on her royal guest, Diablo crowed an alarm and shot in the direction of what appeared to be three small specs of colourful light disappearing into a crack of the dungeon wall.

Could this day get any better? The three fairies Maleficent most wanted under lock and key had walked right into her dungeon!

"Well!" she remarked. With a wave of her hand, the three specs ceased their attempt to escape and grew into their properly-sized good fairy selves. "This day has been full of unprecedented surprises! What brings you three to my humble abode? Come by for a spot of tea?"

Merryweather made to charge at her, but she and the other fairies of course found their feet resolutely rooted to the ground.

"I'm afraid if you've come to see the prince, you're a bit late. It is well past visiting hours, you know," she absently twirled her fingers about her staff. "You must forgive me for being such a poor host. It has been quite some time since I have entertained so many guests at once and I find myself at a bit of a loss. What to do, what to do?"

"What has Prince Philip ever done to you?" Flora demanded.

"Why, nothing as of yet," Maleficent replied. "I find that one can never be too careful in matters such as these, though it's evident you disagree."

"What do you mean by that?" Merryweather interjected, but Flora waved at her to be silent.

"Where is the princess?"

Maleficent chuckled. "Your negligence regarding your royal charge is astounding. She remains in the tower where you left her unattended. A fortuitous surprise, indeed. If I didn't know better, I would have thought you had no interest in hiding her from me."

"Why, you...you, you...What have you done to her?" Merryweather barked.

"The more important question is," Maleficent retorted, quickly growing bored with the conversation, "what have you done to her, O Mistress of True Love's First Kiss?"

"What's that supposed to mean? I was saving her life!"

"Saving her life from you, you dreadful—!"

"What did she ever do to you, anyway?"

"Sentencing an innocent baby to death, why that's—"

"—been meaning to give you a piece of my mind—"

"—she doesn't deserve to—"

With a wave of Maleficent's hand, the three good fairies were deposited in another empty cell. This did not cause them to stop yelling over one another at her, but she turned her back on them and made to depart, when a third voice caught her ear.

"Would you really rather she had died, Maleficent?" asked Fauna.

Maleficent stood still. She refused to turn around for fear that her face would give her away, and she knew she couldn't leave for fear that her silence would be her betrayal. "No," she answered honestly, composing herself before she turned around. "This," she chose her next words carefully, "is infinitely better."

Flora and Fauna were flabbergasted. Merryweather was distrustful, "What do you mean?"

"No peaceful rest, no peaceful life for her now. I could not have done better, myself," she smiled and the three sisters cringed. "I had already forgotten that I meant to thank you for the amusement you have provided me."

With a wave of her staff, Maleficent disappeared in an explosion of green flame.

She rematerialized in her bedchamber, where she all but threw the piles of books off of her bed, tucked herself in, and breathed a deep sigh of relief. To her surprise, sleep did not come easily to her. Her mind continued to race, and interwoven with her own frantic thoughts were sad whispers of thoughts that didn't entirely make sense, in a voice which was not quite familiar to her.

_Am I Briar Rose?_ the voice whispered.

Then, a few moments later, _Or am I Aurora now?_

An hour or more passed, and Maleficent finally drifted off to sleep, but it was far from restful. Every few hours, she was roused from her slumber by the quiet, nagging voice of the sleeping princess.

_Am I Briar Rose?_

_Or am I Aurora?_

_Am I both?_

_Am I neither?_


	3. Between Nightmares

**A/N:** This took a lot of reworking to make me happy with it, but I think I like the result. Feedback would be much appreciated!

**EDIT:** I FORGOT, SORRY! Malora, or anyone else who is interested, the link to the first draft is now in my profile, or I'm also slowly posting it onto AO3!

* * *

**Chapter 2 – Between Nightmares**

As of late, Briar Rose found herself with a great deal of free time and quite literally nothing else to do but to ponder. Time passed agonizingly slowly, and Rose found herself completely unable to keep track of it.

A part of her knew that not very much time could have passed since she had believed her life to be simple, for she still felt the sting of her aunts' betrayal quite keenly. The plethora of lies they had so easily fed her over the course of sixteen years occupied much of her time, for she could not wrap her head around them. How could three women who, despite the fact that they were not related to her, had lovingly, and perhaps slightly overbearingly, raised her since she was a few days old, feel that it was acceptable to tell her such an intricate tapestry of untruths? Did that make her entire life up to this point a lie? If so, what was this Hell that had since befallen her? Was this the wretched, unadorned truth behind it all?

The first lie they had told her had been that her parents were dead. They had died in some kind of horrible accident only a few days after Rose's birth, and Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, who were her mother's sisters, had taken her in. As such, Rose had always believed that her aunts were the only family she had. They were the only anything she had, as a matter of fact, because she was not allowed to speak to strangers.

The truth of the matter, though, was that Briar Rose's parents were not only very much alive, they were King Stefan and Queen Leah of the East. Rose knew their names and she knew their faces, but the names and faces of the distant royalty had little impact on the life of a happy peasant girl, who had never known the feeling of having parents, and so could not know what she was missing. Now she tried to conjure the image of King Stefan with his long, thin face and his dark-haired beard and think _father_. She tried to think of the beautiful Queen Leah with her golden hair and kind eyes and think _mother_.

And yet these names and faces of people she did not truly know had lived for sixteen years without knowing where their daughter, Princess Aurora, was. In fact, they did not know a single thing about her. They did not know whether she was alive, they did not know whether she was safe, and they did not know that she was called by a different name. They had waited patiently for sixteen years to see if their daughter might show up alive and unharmed on her wedding day, only to give her away to someone else she did not know.

What kind of parents could wait with such patience, Rose wondered? And wouldn't they be awfully disappointed when, instead of their long-lost daughter, Princess Aurora, the lonely peasant girl Briar Rose showed up disguised in a pretty dress? Or would they be just as contented never to know their daughter very well at all? If that weren't the case, could they not have postponed her wedding a few days, at least?

And if her aunts weren't really her aunts but three good fairies who intended to give her back to her parents, and if her parents were actually Princess Aurora's parents and would expect her to be someone she clearly was not, did she really have any family at all? Or even a friend? Was there anyone in this world who truly cared whether she—Briar Rose, and not Princess Aurora—lived or died, beyond what they could gain or lose in the matter?

An indeterminate number of hours, or perhaps even days, after Maleficent had left her, Briar Rose's thoughts dared to drift to her first true impression of the wicked fairy who had confined her to this dreadful state, and to consider whether or not to believe in the scores of new information she had learned during their brief encounter. She wasn't certain how this mind-reading thing worked. Could Maleficent always hear what she was thinking, or only when she was nearby? Could she hear every fleeting thought Rose had ever had, share every memory, and recount every dream? The notion made Rose want very much to shiver. If this were so, Maleficent knew more about Rose than she knew about herself, though that was perhaps not saying very much.

Rose knew comparatively little about Maleficent. Her non-aunts had managed to keep Rose almost entirely unaware of Maleficent's existence until a few months ago. Perhaps this was unsurprising—since Rose was not allowed to speak to strangers, her only sources of information were her aunts and their small collection of books, and Rose was not a very skilled reader. For this reason, she found reading taxing and only attempted it when she most desperately needed an escape from the humdrum world in which she thought she lived. Sometime after she turned fifteen, Rose had stumbled upon a name, a long, unpronounceable thing in an otherwise simple story called _The Lost Princess_, and she had asked Aunt Fauna, the second-oldest and most mild-mannered of her aunts, for assistance.

Aunt Fauna had looked at Rose as though she had done something horrible. "Oh…" she'd said, wringing her hands. "Well…dear…it's pronounced Maleficent."

"Is it a name?" Rose had asked.

"Well…ah…yes. She's a wicked fairy who lives very far south of here."

Rose had thrust the book into Aunt Fauna's hands and Aunt Fauna had told her the story she had recounted to Maleficent, herself: that the wicked fairy had cursed the princess to fall into a deep slumber. Rose wondered with some indignation whether this lie was the invention of the storybook or of her aunt.

At the time, Rose did not question the story. Her aunts believed very firmly that there were good people and evil people in this world. The good were always well-intentioned and tried to do good deeds, while the evil were always trying to cause trouble whatever way they pleased. It had made perfect sense that a wicked fairy would curse a princess.

But Maleficent was not a character in a storybook. She was a person with a name and some kind of motivation at which Rose could only guess. Her voice had the power to engender a full range of emotions in a single sentence and her thoughts worked so efficiently that she could juggle them and still accurately assess and respond to Rose's muddled jumble of ideas as though they were having a normal conversation. This seemed to Rose, who could scarcely even keep track of her own thoughts, the mark of an unnervingly agile mind. As if that were not enough, this agile mind had the seemingly insurmountable advantage of having Briar Rose's entire essence laid out before her to pick through as she saw fit.

Such a mind, Rose thought, was unlikely to be so spiteful for spite's sake alone. Such a mind must be capable of marvelous and awe-inspiring things, and so why would it resign itself to tossing around petty curses simply because someone deemed it inherently wicked?

Rose was beginning to believe very strongly that Maleficent had a _reason_—possibly several—for putting a curse on Princess Aurora. She did not simply want Rose dead because she was evil. She wanted her dead for some _reason_.

It followed logically that Maleficent would also have a reason for anything else she decided to do; for example, stopping whatever it was she was doing to carry on a chat with her prey. It would have been one thing to taunt her as a storybook villain would. It was quite another to answer even a handful of her questions, and the whole thing became an unintelligible mess when Rose remembered the feeling of Maleficent's fingertips against her forehead in an offer, however strange and however unsuccessful, of comfort.

Was it all a part of some complex master plan around which Rose couldn't even begin to wrap her mind? Or merely a thing anyone would do if anyone else were in distress? As little as Rose knew about Maleficent, it seemed utterly absurd to call her just anyone. And yet, was she as far removed from being _just anyone_ as that wicked fairy in the book?

This question—was Maleficent just anyone or more than just anyone or not just anyone at all?—gave Briar Rose a dreadful headache, and so she tried very hard to unstick her brain from it and move on to something else.

The result was a curious and very frightening phenomenon: her thoughts began to swirl and overlap, and she found that she could not move onto something else. There were too many questions to which she needed answers, but every question led to more unanswerable questions.

She tried to think of the boy she met in the woods, but he, too, seemed to have melted into a beautiful lie. He was not a boy in the woods at all. He was a royal like Princess Aurora's parents were royals. What did he want of her, a lowly peasant girl? Did he truly care for her at all, or was he merely leading her on as a fun means of whiling away an afternoon?

Anyway, he didn't know she was Princess Aurora. By agreeing to meet Briar Rose at the cottage, wasn't he forsaking his soon-to-be bride? Or, since Briar Rose was Princess Aurora, was it somehow all right? Did it mean that he, the boy who was Philip, truly cared for her, Briar Rose who was Princess Aurora?

But he couldn't, for he didn't truly know her. Indeed, they'd hardly spoken.

Her aunts—the good fairies—had been so surprised when she had not been elated by their revelation of her new identity. Through her tears she could hear them whispering about _that boy she met_ and _whatever were they going to tell the King_ about _some peasant boy in the woods_, as though _that boy she met_ were the only reason she could possibly be unhappy. She had just learned that the story of the Lost Princess Aurora was true. Not only was it true, it was she. Princess Aurora and Briar Rose were one and the same. Princess Aurora eclipsed Briar Rose. Briar Rose would henceforth be Princess Aurora.

_That boy she met_ was but a fraction, a tiny detail, of her despair.

How could her aunts not see that? Didn't they care for her at all, after raising her as their own for all these years? Couldn't they see that any person would be upset to learn that her entire life was a lie? Briar Rose was not a princess in a storybook. She was a person with a name she knew and a name which didn't seem like hers. She was a person who had of late become so horribly lonely that her thoughts tended to get away from her, and sure, she dreamed of meeting a handsome prince and being swept off her feet like Cinderella, but she never really expected it to happen. In reality, she was happy to lead a simple existence. In reality, all of this was far too much for her to handle.

And how could her aunts, the only people she had ever known, not know this about her? How could they not know that her world, her reality, and the few simple things which were the only things she knew, would be shattered by this revelation?

"Because, Briar Rose," said Maleficent, and Rose was convinced she nearly died of fright, for she had not heard Maleficent enter or approach, "the span of your entire existence is as nothing to them."

This, the confirmation of Rose's argument with herself that no one in the world cared whether she lived or died, caused her heart to wrench painfully.

"There's no need for melodrama. I meant that when you've been alive for over half a millennium, sixteen years doesn't seem like a very long time."

Half a _millennium_? She supposed she'd thought her aunts to be in their fifties or sixties. How old did that make Maleficent? Had she been alive since the dawn of time, as Aunt Flora had briefly told her on their walk to the castle?

"Alive since the dawn of time?" Maleficent's voice was positively dripping with derision. Rose felt heat rising in her cheeks as she was reminded that no rumination was safe from her captor, and she wondered pointlessly whether she was blushing visibly. "Do you suppose those imbeciles actually believe the things they say? They have _centuries_ on me! Why, compared to Mistress Flora, I'm a spring chicken! _Alive since the dawn of time_…"

Rose tried to explain her aunt's reasoning. _She said you were the root of all evil_.

"Perhaps in this land," Maleficent replied, and she still sounded somewhat incredulous. "But there are countless other realms I've never visited where countless other wicked fairies reign, and of course I had a mother, and she also had a mother. I don't know of any wicked fairies born at the dawn of time who are still alive," she said with a silvery chuckle. "What an absurd thing to say."

_I can't help it...it's so hard to keep track of what I'm thinking this way. I would never have said such a thing aloud._

"No, you wouldn't," Maleficent agreed. "And you would have retained the bizarre delusion that I am as old as Time. Perhaps there is something to be gained from your present predicament."

Rose began to feel sick to her stomach. She wondered if she was capable of retching and dearly hoped not, for how much more miserable could she be?

Something to be gained? For what purpose? Wasn't Maleficent only keeping her here until she decided exactly how she wanted to kill her?

Maleficent sighed. "This will be the third time I've told you I'm not planning to kill you."

_Why should I believe you? Why should I believe anything you say?_

"You know," said Maleficent slowly, "I admire the sentiment behind that thought, I really do. I admire it in you as I admired it in your mother, the Queen. It's not every sheltered, beautiful young woman who has the wherewithal to question what she is told to believe."

Rose wondered with a start what Maleficent had to do with Queen Leah which would spark such a comment—as far as Rose knew, King Stefan and Queen Leah openly scorned and reviled Maleficent, and their only interaction with her had been at Princess Aurora's christening.

This tangential swirl of musings was halted abruptly by the light, chilling sound of Maleficent's laughter. "However," she continued, apparently electing not to divulge the nature of her interactions with Queen Leah, "it would behoove you to realize that your options are somewhat limited by your circumstances. Essentially, because I am your only source of outside information, you can choose to believe me or not to believe me on any given subject. I don't particularly care whether you believe me or not, but I couldn't offer you any evidence to support my claims even if I wanted to. You're going to end up with false information whether you like it or not, because without any other information, and unless by some chance I am telling you the unbiased truth, you will believe a strange combination of what you want to believe and what I want you to believe.

"With that in mind, consider the following: what good will it do you to believe that I intend to kill you despite what I have told you?"

Rose's mind tried to offer up a few suggestions, but they seemed somewhat feeble by comparison. _I don't want to die_, cried a sad, frightened part of her. _ If I let down my guard, you will kill me_. Of course that was nonsense. Maleficent could kill her any time she wanted. _If I believe one thing you say, I will believe everything you say_, reasoned another extremely gullible part of Rose—the same part so desperate for company that she worried that she might have fallen helplessly in love with_ any_ stranger she'd met in the woods, simply because of the novelty of it.

_I don't know_, she thought finally. _It just seems important_.

"If you truly believe I am going to kill you, and you are well aware that you are powerless to stop me, then you will begin to spend every moment wondering when your death will come. That seems to me like a quick and easy way to drive yourself mad."

_Then why should you warn me of it? What is your plan, if it's not to kill me and not to drive me mad?_

"Don't misunderstand me," Maleficent replied, a hint of mirth in her cold voice. "Driving you mad would be an entertaining diversion. However, I'd much prefer a worthy opponent. There's little sport in driving you mad when you're already hovering on the edge."

So instead of waiting for the right moment to kill her, Maleficent was waiting for the right moment to drive her mad? Rose's head ached with the prospect. This seemed an infinitely crueler fate than waiting forever for the hour of her death...waiting for the moment when she finally lost control over her own mind, the place where she was trapped, possibly forever.

How could Maleficent be even crueler than the villain in the story book? How could she wish upon Rose something even more twisted than what Rose had previously imagined?

Maleficent was not a character in a story book. She was a person with a name and some kind of motivation. She was a person with a life and a past and a present and a future in which the span of Rose's existence was as nothing, and would be as nothing even if she remained under this dreadful curse for a hundred years or more. Maleficent was so much worse than a villain in a book. She was real.

Maleficent chuckled again, and the sound was so much darker than it had been before. Rose was seized by the urge to cry. Her eyes and throat stung and she found it nearly impossible to breathe.

"You're not the first to crumble upon realizing the extent of my wickedness, Briar Rose," said Maleficent, almost pleasantly.

Bizarrely, painfully, Rose's heart wrenched when she heard the faintest tap-tap-tap of Maleficent's footsteps receding from her bedside.

_Wait!_ her mind cried out in anguish as she choked on her own unshed tears. _Oh, God, wait! Don't leave me here alone like this! Not again!_

The footsteps ceased and there was an eerie silence as Rose gasped for air but made no sound, and her hysteria increased tenfold when she realized Maleficent had ignored her pleas and left her here to choke to death.

So much for her alleged plan to keep Rose alive. Or could she even die this way? Would she choke on nothing forever? Would her mind ever lack for oxygen to the point that it could no longer function, or would that be too much peace to hope for?

After several minutes, Rose's breathing slowed and steadied. Perhaps her aunts had been right, after all. Perhaps the world was much simpler than it seemed. There were good people who always at least meant well, and there were evil people...so much more evil than Rose could ever have imagined...who wished others harm simply because they could, because they had the power to do so.

Rose decided that she had been sorely mistaken, and that Maleficent was far more masterful a manipulator than Rose had previously guessed. It would have been so much easier for Rose to believe that Maleficent might kill her at any moment. This notion—that Maleficent might someday put an end to her suffering—now made her seem positively merciful by comparison to what truly lay in store.

"I do hope you intend to continue contemplating how evil I am all night," said Maleficent, and again, Rose would have jumped out of her skin if she'd been able. "The identity crisis was beginning to wear on my nerves."

Once Rose had recovered from her fright, and then from her surprise, she had completely forgotten what Maleficent had said.

"Have you decided yet whether you're Aurora, Briar Rose, both, or neither?" Maleficent wondered conversationally.

_Have you been there this whole time?_

"You begged me to stay, did you not? Anyway, I never said I wouldn't enjoy it if you lost your mind ahead of schedule."

Rose didn't know who she was. She couldn't keep track of her thoughts, and her thoughts had always been who she was. Aurora, by contrast, seemed only to be who other people thought she was. Rose did not want to cease to exist. She did not want to be only who other people thought she was. She did not want to be Aurora.

"Then perhaps I have done you a favour," said Maleficent lightly.

The possibility that this was true caught Rose completely by surprise. Was it worse to be forced to become someone else, someone who was only ever what someone else wanted? Or was it worse to be conflicted, confused, and possibly in imminent danger, but still at least mostly herself, even if no one wanted her that way?

_Perhaps you have_, Rose agreed at last. _I'm not much, to be sure...but I am all I have left._

"I would posit," said Maleficent, much of the bite gone from her voice, "that you are more than you know."

This nearly caused Rose's thoughts to spin away from her. _If I am more than I know, I don't wish to know it. I am already too many people. I am already more than I want to be_.

"You misunderstand me. I mean to say that you, simply Briar Rose, are considerably more valuable than _not much_, as you say."

This seemed like it ought to be more trickery, but Rose had already come to the terrifying realization that Maleficent was sneakier than that. When she seemed like she was trying to manipulate Rose into thinking one thing, she was really working on another entirely. Who was to say what she was up to when she didn't seem to be up to anything?

Anyway, how could Briar Rose be worth anything to anyone other than herself? Her aunts didn't want Briar Rose to exist anymore. Her parents most likely wished Briar Rose had never existed. Briar Rose only existed because of a catastrophe.

"But you exist, nonetheless," said Maleficent, seamlessly continuing her train of thought. "I am merely suggesting that there is some merit to existing even when someone would rather you didn't."

_Even if that someone is you? _Rose wondered and then promptly wished she hadn't, and then promptly decided she ought to have wondered just that, for wouldn't it be remarkably risky to accept kind words from someone she had just determined to be unfathomably evil?

"Especially if that someone is me," Maleficent replied, to Rose's immense surprise. "It shows a certain strength of character. And didn't I mention already that I'd prefer a worthy opponent?"

Rose didn't understand. What kind of trickery was this? She supposed, when she thought about it, that she could understand her mixed feelings about Maleficent. On the one hand, Maleficent was terrifying and despicable. She was cold, twisted, and cruel, and she was more than likely just having this conversation as part of some big, complicated scheme to cause unspeakable ill to as many people as possible.

At the same time, she was, as she had made abundantly clear, Rose's only source of information, and of companionship. She also happened to be the second person Rose had ever spoken to outside of her three aunts, and the only of those two outsiders with whom she'd had something like an actual conversation.

And really, when she thought about this, it seemed more and more important to her. Maleficent mocked her, certainly, and almost constant said cruel things to her, possibly just for the sake of being unkind. But she did not seem to take pleasure in Rose's ignorance, nor did she encourage it. Whether or not she was lying or telling half-truths, when it had become clear that Rose did not know something, Maleficent, every so often, provided the answer—or an answer, at any rate—with no provocation.

_Perhaps there is something to be gained from your present predicament_, Maleficent had said.

Rose had first wondered at the purpose behind such a statement, and she still hesitated to believe it. The instant she believed Maleficent was not wholeheartedly devoted to causing her harm, Rose knew, she would begin to lose track of other important details of her cruelty...not to mention her power, which must be formidable if the obviousness of her intellect was any indication. She would forget, and with no one else to keep her company and so few pleasant memories to cling to, she would grow fond of her captor, and she would begin to believe whatever that captivating voice told her.

Now, though, she dared to wonder what might be gained. Knowledge? Surely such a keen mind as Maleficent's knew things Rose could not even conceptualize. Surely she had traveled outside of this land—perhaps even outside of this world.

Rose had always been exceedingly curious, or so her aunts often told her. 'Curiosity killed the cat,' Aunt Merryweather would warn her, and Aunt Fauna would explain, far more gently, that sometimes—indeed, more often than not, it was better not to ask questions. One who asked too many questions, and especially one who found out too many of the answers, often found herself in a lot of trouble.

Aside from that, a lady who asked too many questions was a nuisance.

Still...if, by some off-chance, Rose were to survive this ordeal, perhaps she could truly benefit from some of Maleficent's knowledge, since no one else seemed particularly willing to indulge her thirst for information.

"It seems we have something in common."

Something in common? The notion caused Rose's stomach to twist uncomfortably. What could it possibly be? The nagging resentment she felt growing for her aunts, the only people she had ever loved? The only people she had ever known, even if it was all a lie, and she was so angry at them that she couldn't imagine how she would even begin to forgive them. Was Rose only a few years or a century or so away from becoming a person who taunted stupid, half-mad peasant girls to while away her time?

Maleficent's response was crisp. "I was referring to your proclamation of a thirst for knowledge, but if you'd like to ruminate on how cruel and petty I am, please, be my guest. It's very original work, really."

Oh. Rose rather wished Maleficent hadn't been witness to that particular string of uncharitable thoughts. Now that Rose thought about it, it was very rude. Especially considering that Maleficent had intended to say something remarkably close to pleasant.

"You're concerned you've offended me?" Maleficent asked, her voice taking on that syrupy-sweet quality that chilled Rose to the bone. "Perhaps you are your mother's daughter, after all."

_Offended...not offended. Hurt your feelings, maybe. I'm sorry. I didn't mean...well, I did sort of mean it, but I didn't mean to be unkind. Or to judge you so harshly. I mean...I don't really know anything about you. Or about anyone, or anything...but that's... _Again, Rose longed to shake some sense back into her head.

Maleficent was silent for what seemed like a long time, but Rose vaguely realized it was really no more than a few seconds. Perhaps she hadn't been here as long as she thought. Perhaps seconds seemed like minutes and minutes seemed like hours and... "We spend our lives being judged," said Maleficent at last, her voice almost inaudible, but every word still crystal clear. "Forced into the roles others want us to play, for the sake of their personal comfort. One day, when we've grown weary of the constant battle against destiny, we acquiesce. We become exactly what everyone always believed we were."

_What does that mean? _ Rose's head was beginning to ache again.

"It means..." Maleficent paused. It was the first time Maleficent seemed to require any time to think at all. "It means that perhaps I've also acted rashly."

Rose heard the faint rustle of fabric—she wondered whether it was a long dress, or a cape, or robes—and the faint tapping of footsteps, and again her mind cried out in panic.

_Wait!_

The footsteps ceased. "Yes?"

Taken completely aback by Maleficent heeding her frantic plea, Rose's thoughts began to race with a thousand or more unanswered questions she longed to ask while she had the opportunity. The one her mind settled upon seemed at the same time completely ridiculous and extremely necessary, far more so than any other question she could possibly conceive.

_Why have you come to speak with me? I mean...why bother?_

After several seconds, or perhaps minutes, or perhaps hours, no answer came. If Rose had any idea what Maleficent looked like, she would have imagined her shaking her head in disdain and leaving...perhaps vanishing into a puff of smoke or fading away into the shadows Rose imagined in the corners of the room she had never seen.

"I spent sixteen years searching for you," said Maleficent finally. Her voice was back to the way it was when Rose had first truly heard it: quiet, controlled, resonant, and with just a hint of an edge to it. "It seems worthwhile to find out why I cared so much. I'm rather glad I did, as it happens. You're a fair bit cleverer than I imagined."

_Me? Clever? _Rose tried (very unsuccessfully) to scoff. She supposed she had never thought about cleverness very much before. Cleverness entailed knowing things, didn't it? And it had become abundantly clear to Rose that she knew next to nothing about anything. Before, that hadn't seemed like much of a problem to her. Her aunts had told her it was better not to ask questions, and though there were perhaps a lot of things Rose would have liked to know, she didn't need the information for any particular reason.

Briar Rose had sincerely believed that she might forever lead a relatively simple, if perhaps a rather lonely life. To learn that she must become a princess...and by extension, someday become a queen...this completely shattered Rose's vision of what her ideal life might be. In the place of her fondest dreams lay only an empty void, for Briar Rose was no longer free to choose anything about her life, if indeed she had ever been.

But being clever had never seemed particularly important to Rose. Being kind, courteous, and understanding...these were the things her aunts had taught her to value. Now, faced with a person who was obviously so exceedingly clever, and who so obviously did not value kindness, Rose felt completely ill-equipped. What could she say—or think, as it were, that wouldn't sound utterly stupid to someone like Maleficent?

"Well," said Maleficent, startling Rose out of her self-loathing, "you were raised by three of my favourite fairies." Her voice was light, almost pleasant, but all the more chilling for the hint of amusement in it. "In spite of that, though, you're not a fool."

_I feel foolish_. Especially, she thought, momentarily forgetting that Maleficent could hear her even when her thoughts did not form coherent sentences, compared to her captor.

"Youth," said Maleficent, and once again, Rose got the sense that she might be tired. "Innocence, naïveté…these are not foolishness. And they're not to be underestimated. It isn't the information you possess, Briar Rose. It's the way you use the information you're given."

Rose's head was beginning to spin again. It would only be a matter of time, honestly, before Maleficent convinced her of whatever it was she wanted Rose to believe. Rose wanted very badly to heave a sigh of sorrow for the impending loss of what remained of her sanity.

Why was Maleficent telling her this? Why was she suddenly acting as though Rose's anguish was not her only goal? It made Rose want to cry. It would be so much simpler if Maleficent were a villain in a story book.

And then Rose remembered what Maleficent had said about being judged, being forced to play a role in someone else's story. She remembered the way Maleficent's voice had sounded, as though she were speaking the words in earnest. And perhaps Rose was a fool to believe anything Maleficent said, but it seemed dreadful of her to try to push Maleficent into the role which would make Rose most comfortable when she so feared and despised the same thing being done to her. When Maleficent was, for whatever reason, not doing the same thing to Rose.

Maleficent was the only person in the world who did not want Briar Rose to be Princess Aurora. Whatever her reasons, Maleficent had, in a twisted way, saved Rose from the fate she had so dreaded. Rose was seized by the overwhelming desire to express her gratitude for this in some way, until she realized that Maleficent was probably still standing, unnervingly silent, a short distance away from where Rose slept, listening to Rose's every thought.

_Have you decided?_ Rose wondered, though she wasn't certain she really wanted to know the answer. _Why you cared so much?_

"I already knew," Maleficent replied. "I cared because I don't like to lose, and I will not endure losing to an unworthy opponent. I didn't need to speak with you to determine that."

_Then you avoided my question._

"Does that surprise you, Princess?" Maleficent sneered.

And Rose found that it did. She was trying to hold onto important details about Maleficent—she tried to think _cold, cruel, twisted...far more twisted than the evil fairy in the story book_—but these thoughts intermingled with _knowledgeable, frank, possibly not lying_, and _you're_ _cleverer than I imagined_... And these in turn mixed with _Aurora, Briar Rose, both, neither_, and by the time she remembered she'd been having a conversation, she'd forgotten what it was about.

"I rather wish I hadn't gotten you off-topic," said Maleficent in the lighter tone that suggested imminent mockery. "Perhaps by the time I go to bed, you'll have worked your way back to cold, cruel, and twisted. On the subject of bed, good evening."

Rose snapped to attention at the sound of rustling fabric and footsteps, and again, her entire body seized up in panic.

_Wait!_

Maleficent would not wait. Rose knew this already. She had waited before, but that had been an anomaly. _Cold, cruel, twisted_...not _waits when I ask_, not _cares whether I live or die, if only for her own purposes...cold, cruel, twisted purposes_...

"What is it now?"

_...Aurora, Briar Rose, cold...what?_ Rose's swirl of thoughts was stunned into eerie silence when she realized that Maleficent had indeed waited when she asked not once, not twice, but three times during the course of this conversation. Assuming this had been only one conversation. But of course it had...why would Maleficent waste more time talking to her? Rose was merely Maleficent's prey, her captive, and it frightened her deeply that she had to remind herself of this so firmly, despite the fact that the notion made her heart ache with a kind of loneliness she only thought she had understood before.

Desperately, and although she loathed herself for the thought before it had even fully formed, Rose remembered suddenly and painfully why she had begged Maleficent to wait one last time.

_Are you coming back?_

A long silence followed, but somehow Rose knew that Maleficent had not left, and she struggled to wait attentively for the answer. She wasn't certain how she would react to either answer, a yes or a no, and this, that Rose did not know her own thoughts—thoughts from which she could not escape, no matter how hard she tried—terrified her, perhaps even more than Maleficent did.

"Why wouldn't I?" asked Maleficent finally, her tone neutral, bordering on pleasant. "Whenever I leave this matter to anyone else, it goes to ruin. Now shall you deal with me, O Princess," she chuckled. "Pleasant dreams."

When Maleficent had truly left, Rose knew it. She felt Maleficent's absence. She was alone again, left with nothing but half-formed ideas about things she barely understood and half-forgotten dreams and memories of a life that didn't exist anymore.

Rose's body tried to weep, and her mind flew into a panic, because when she tried to weep, she started choking, and when she started choking, she couldn't catch her breath, and because she was so panicked, she couldn't calm down, _cold, cruel, twisted_, and was this how the rest of her life would be? Was Maleficent so _cold, cruel, twisted_ as to keep her this way until she lost what little sense she possessed? Was she so evil as to enjoy it?

Perhaps far more terrifying, what if she wasn't? What if she did decide to set Rose free? What then? Rose would cease to be Rose, and her life would become a new sort of nightmare. Was there really any hope for her at all?


End file.
